http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/canada/toronto/toronto-gallery-indigenous-art-cancels-amandapl-1.4091529

Is using a style of art as influence appropriation?

Canada has gone so far down the rabbit hole that anyone who has influences can be deemed racist or not understanding of the culture so they can't use that culture as influence!

South Korea is starting this with hanbok's and traditional styles, the USA is also going down the rabbit hole.

Essentially it has become racist to appreciate and take influence from other cultures. The world is going the wrong direction!!

Taking ideas from other cultures and mixing them with your culture's ideas is part of how culture works. Yes, sometimes people are going to do something dumb or offensive, but c'est la vie. No one has ever been offended to death.

Romania is in Europe, so can't be a victim.

I should also get offended when I see Asians and other non-Celtic people wearing tartan. School girls are the worst!

Also, this quote does her zero favors in my mind.

"That's like saying any other culture can't touch something like abstract art unless you're white, or you can't touch cubism art."

Did African Americans bastardize western music by developing jazz or R&B?

Finding the answer to that question yourself would be genuinely rewarding.

Quote from: Talawsohu on April 30, 2017, 05:15:23 PM

TLDR IMHO: It is okay to borrow if it comes from a place of honesty or authenticity. It is not okay if you just want something pretty to hang on your bathroom wall.

Seriously? I used to have a print of a Chinese painting in my bathroom. I got it because I thought it looked nice and matched the paint in that room. Is getting on people for how they decorate their bathrooms actually going to do any real good in the world? I can't see how.

Oops, that's my fault for being unclear. Obviously, there is nothing wrong with hanging a painting in your bathroom. The artist, not the audience, is responsible. I meant more like hanging a rosary on your wall despite not being Catholic (or even Christian) because you thought the beads were cool.

I could also be giving terrible examples. I probably shouldn't have used a private space. How about if the bathroom were at Arby's?

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_58f4d4b2e4b0da2ff861ef7e

Korean Pop with all non-Koreans :)

The golden age of Korean appropriation is near and waygook's will be in the crosshairs here especially if the left wins the election!

I am confused by all this.

I never did understand all the uproar back when Paul Simon collaborated with S.A musicians.   As he said, the musicians were well paid.  It wasn't like he was stealing
their music, or was it?

Or how about Ry Cooder's various collaborative albums?
Or Linda Ronstadt singing Mexican songs?

What is wrong with people borrowing from other cultures?

I don't get it.

If they were doing it in a negative/ racist way, that would be different.

The concept of "appropriation" is false and meant to confer victim status to people who are already privileged--that is people belonging to the upper middle or upper classes. It is then used as a means of furthering those individuals political or economic endeavors. It also has the purpose of driving wedges between people based on the most minute physical differences (e.g. skin color); there is no reason for a poor black guy to support a rich black guy for a political position, for example, unless the former is made to think the two have common interests based solely on the color of their skin. Historically, oppression was based on economic class: The king and landlords oppressing the peasantry. The robber baron oppressing his workers. And so on.

However, with most things the purveyors of identity politics have latched on to, there are kernels of truth behind what they say. Racism and sexism have existed in terrible forms and continue to exist today. That is not what they are concerned with. They exploit people's genuine concerns over these issues to defend the current economic system and delegitimize the economic, class issues. A white worker, an Asian worker, and a blacker worker on an auto factory assembly line have far more in common with one another than with their bosses or politicians, regardless of race or gender. The identity politics crowd says this is not the case and claims the white worker is better off and even receives special privileges. By doing so, this crowd says, "It's not the economic system, in and of itself, that's the problem!" specifically because they want to increase their own wealth at the expense of those workers: white, black and Asian. The black guy is led to think, "If there were just more black CEOs..." Same for the Asian worker, etc.

On the specific issue of appropriation, tying it together with other forms of identity politics, non-straight, white men, regardless of their economic status, can now claim victim status. An Asian actor, for example, who wants to remove competition and ensure he gets a big role and a big pay day, can scream "APPROPRIATION!" if said role goes to a white man. Whether or not the Asian actor gets the role will have no effect on the Asian auto worker trying to feed his family. This can be used by any non-European group to force their way into positions of high power, within the existing system that exploits the vast majority of people regardless of race, gender, etc. Their complaint is not the existing system, but that they can't profit from it as much as they'd like.

In this, the identity politics crowd rely on filthy racialism and other stereotypes to generate an atmosphere of fear and hatred towards people not belonging to a certain group. When it comes to individual painters and artists, such as the one pointed to by OP, the identity politics crowd simply want to intimidate people into accepting their beliefs and include it as part of their overall "narrative" of oppression, regardless of actual facts. Even the more honest of the identity politics crowd, who say culture can be shared so long as genuine understanding and respect is given to that culture, promote the utterly filthy racialism of the crowd as a whole. Who decides if I've given enough understanding and respect to Korean culture if I want to wear a hanbok? Is there a test I need to take? It becomes easy for a Korean nationalist who just hates white people to denounce a white person in a hanbok, regardless of how long he or she has studied Korean culture, the language, etc.

To cap that off, it also creates a new tribalism. In South Korea, where more and more foreigners are having children with Koreans (just as an example, but it can be used anywhere), or even two foreigners who live and have children in Korea, there will be people who do not look "traditionally" Korean, yet identity as such. To create an atmosphere in which those children, as they grow up, cannot express their Korean identity for fear of being called "appropriators," denounced in the media, or even assaulted physically, is pure racism and chauvinism. The filthy politics of the identity politics crowd, the supposed defenders against racism, turns into the most racist, no different from white supremacy.